The Blog of International Judicial Assistance | By Ted Folkman of Pierce Bainbridge

Posts tagged “Cuba”

The case of the day is Villoldo v. Castro (1st Cir. 2016). Westlaw calls the case Villoldo v. Ruz. I’m no Spanish naming convention expert, but that seems clearly wrong. Anyway, Alfredo and Gustavo Villoldo were Cuban brothers. In 1959, the Cuban government confiscated their father’s property and threatened them, even after they fled to Miami. The brothers sued the Cuban government and high officials, namely Fidel and Raul Castro, in the Florida state court in 2008. The Florida case ended in a $2.79 billion default judgment. The brothers then sued on the Florida judgment in the federal court in New York. Again, the case ended in a default judgment. The brothers registered the judgment in the District of Massachusetts, and the District Court…

The case of the day is Jerez v. Republic of Cuba (D.C. Cir. 2014). This is the appeal from the case of the day from September 13, 2013. Nilo Jerez claimed he had been tortured by the Cuban government in the 1960s and 1970s. In 2005, he sued Cuba in a Florida state court under the Torture Victim Protection Act, and he obtained a default judgment. Jerez then sued on the judgment in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida which recognized the Florida judgment after Cuba again defaulted. Then Jerez registered the new federal judgment in the District of Columbia and sought to attach patents and trademarks said to be owned by instrumentalities of Cuba. The US District Court in…

On Wednesday, President Obama announced that the United States and Cuba will normalize their relations. This announcement, the long-overdue release of American Alan Gross on humanitarian grounds, and the honorable exchange of three of the so-called “Cuban Five” for a US intelligence agent, show that despite the predictable fury from American hardliners on Cuba such as Senator Rubio and Senator Menendez, things can change for the better and we don’t need to keep repeating the mistakes our grandparents made forever. What a great message for this time of the year!